Wedding Sermon / Gregory and Kimberly Straub / John 1:4–5 - Pastor Ted Giese / Mount Olive Lutheran Church - September 28th 2024

Wedding Sermon / Gregory and Kimberly Straub / Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Saturday September 28th 2024: Season of Pentecost / John 1:4–5 “The Eternal Flame of the Life of Light”

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends even on a sunny day the World is often a dark and unforgiving place; Jesus teaches us that a person “who is forgiven little, loves little,”[1] and so the World can also be a dark and loveless place, in that darkness our heart yearns for a life of light.

Greg and Kim we are here because of your great love for each other, a love that was kindled long ago, whose flame has grown stronger day by day with the passage of time and has not become faint. Saint Paul writes of The Eternal Flame of love in this way when he says, “love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”[2] Here Paul is not speaking of the dark and selfish counterfeit love of the World that often turns on you as soon as you disagree with it, love that’s paper thin with hardly a breath of patience on its brittle lips, that burns to ash in an instant at the first sign of discomfort, but rather Saint Paul speaks of the kind of warm Christian love that Jesus both teaches and embodies, the love He lives out in perfection in our place, the very love that shines through the rain and darkness of this World; a love that burns brightly beyond the romantic, the love that sustains us when all other loves grow cold: An example of love to end all examples.  

Leading up to today you’ve had opportunity to experience the patient and kind light of this love towards each other and today you have gathered friends and family together to witness your commitment to continue to grow in this selfless Light of Love. 

Lasting relationships and married life are not without irritations and temptations towards resentments but in the Christian marriage rooted in The Eternal Flame of the love of Christ Jesus the couple pledges their commitment to not let these dark things overtake them. Today you pledge that you will not even let people and circumstances divide your love. In time the white hot troubles and challenges of this World will be extinguished and will pass away like a whiff of smoke on the air and Saint Peter—who was forgiven much by Jesus—would later in his life give us this advice as we see That Last Day fast approaching, “above all,” Saint Peter says, “keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”[3] When we fail in kindness, when we fail in patient, when we find ourselves insisting on our own way it will likely be towards those we are closest to, and for the married couple it will be toward husband or toward wife that we stumble in this way: as dark as those moments seem, fear not, there is light in that darkness. Before God and these witnesses your commitment today is to ever pick each other up when the darkness threatens to overcome you, to dust each other off and keep moving forward together as an undivided flame burning brightly in Christ Jesus.

This is the sentiment taught in that Old Testament Passage we heard this afternoon “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil; for if they fall, one will lift the [other] up.”[4] Then it concludes with the threefold cord which is not easily broken. The Third Cord that brings this strength in the face of adversity is Christ Jesus. He pledges to hold on to the two of you together; hold on to Him as you hold on to each other and together you will be stronger than you have ever been.

Christian marriage holds fast to the promise that Jesus is The Eternal Flame that will keep your flame of love burning when darkness seeks to put it out. When you feel like there’s nothing left and your wick is used up, when the winds of misfortune threaten to blow you out, in those times the fuel that is there for you in your Christian marriage, the fuel that will keep your light burning together is Christ Jesus who truly “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [Whose eternal flame of] Love never ends.” Dear ones Saint John speaks of this same Jesus saying, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”[5] Greg and Kim for this reason, today and tomorrow and in the years to come, you are never alone as you press forward onto new adventures in life, for this reason your love for each other is not a small love but a big love, for this reason—in Christ Jesus—you are never alone as you make your home together in the light of His love for you and in the light of your love for each other. Today you stand together in the promised life of light against the darkness, standing together in the light of The Eternal Flame of His blessing. Amen.    

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Luke 7:47
[2] 1 Corinthians 13:4–8
[3] 1 Peter 4:8
[4] Ecclesiastes 4:9–10
[5] John 1:4–5

Photo Credit: Photo of Gregory and Kimberly Straub by Pr. Ted Giese.